EFF reaches a million votes

05/05/2014. EFF Commander in Chief Julias Malema during his first visit at the IEC National Results Operation Centre in Pretoria.
Picture: Oupa Mokoena

Pretoria -

New kids on the block the Economic Freedom Fighters cracked the million vote mark on Friday morning in their first national elections.

Early results from the Electoral Commission of SA results centre in Pretoria showed that Julius Malema's party had 1 002 355 votes by 7.05am on Friday.

This meant the party had 6.06 percent of the national votes from Wednesday's elections.

The votes could secure at least 20 seats in Parliament for the fledgling party. For a seat in Parliament, a political party needs about 47 000 votes.

With 94.61 percent of the votes counted, the African National Congress had 62.51 percent of the national votes with 10 333 002 votes while the Democratic Alliance remained in second place with 21.96 percent of the national votes. The DA had 3 629 890 votes.

The EFF was in third place.

Veteran party Inkatha Freedom Party had 405 802 (2.45 percent) votes, followed by their breakaway party the National Freedom Party with 269,712 (1.63 percent) votes.

Other debutant parties, such as Agang SA, the Workers and Socialist Party and the Patriotic Alliance have not done as well as Malema's EFF.

Mamphela Ramphele's Agang SA had only received 0.26 percent with 43 651 votes, which at this stage did not qualify the party for a seat in Parliament.